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Of every noble work the silent part is best,
Of all expression that which can not be expressed.

— William Wetmore Story Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Couplet III, iii, Vol. II, p. 308
Work: Poems of William Wetmore Story, 1885
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by William Wetmore Story

They only the victory win,
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight,—if need be, to die.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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Topics

Silence

More quotes by William Wetmore Story

Strive not to say the whole! The Poet, in his Art,
Must intimate the whole, and say the smallest part.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Ah, me! the vision has vanished—
The music has died away!

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

But the gray and the cold are haunted
By a beauty akin to pain,—
By the sense of a something wanted,
That will never come again.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

And all but their faith overthrown.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Oh! faint delicious spring-time violet,
Thine odor, like a key,
Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let
A thought of sorrow free.

Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

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To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.

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Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot

There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.

Benedict of Nursia

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?

Federico Fellini I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Wetmore Story (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.